Common sense may suggest the latter, as big city news often seems a continuous stream of drugs, homicides and gang wars. Yet, a new study published in the peer-reviewed Annals of Emergency Medicine on Thursday suggests this isn't the case.

In fact, numbers point to the opposite being true.

The study's researchers analyzed nearly 1.3 million injury deaths in more than 3,000 U.S. counties from 1999 to 2006. Their results demonstrated that unintentional injury deaths increased as the counties became more rural, citing a 22% greater risk of such demises in rural communities.

The study focused on both intentional and unintentional injury death. It considered intentional death to be defined as homicide or suicide while unintentional deaths were the outcomes of cuts, falls, drowning, firearms, overexertion, environmental causes and machinery and transportation accidents, among others. The analysis showed unintentional injury deaths to be slightly more than twice as likely than intentional ones.

"Cars, guns and drugs are the unholy trinity causing the majority of injury deaths in the U.S.," said Sage Myers, M.D. and lead study author, in the news release.

She further explained that while homicide was indeed a larger threat in cities, the possibility of unintentional death increases by 40% in rural communities and is 15 times more likely a cause of death than homicide in general.

Motor vehicle accidents were listed as the U.S.'s most common cause of injury death, occurring more than double as often in the country than in cities.

Death by poison, including drug overdoses, was found to be less likely in rural communities.

The statistics showed firearm-related deaths to be level across rural and urban populations. However, when age was factored in, the study found such demises to be much higher in rural communities for children and adults 45 years and older but also much lower between the ages of 20 and 44.

"By digging deep into the data, we may be able to tailor injury prevention efforts to the populations that need them, such as seniors in cities who are more likely to fall and rural children who are more likely to drown," said Dr. Myers.

Hospital trauma centers are rated on a scale of Level I (comprehensive) to IV (limited-care).

California's Level I trauma centers do congregate around urban areas, with Siskiyou County's closest in-state being UC Davis Medical Center, Sacramento, a distance of 212 miles from the county's southern border.